Note III'-13 — Chapter III · ITINERARY, CONCLUDED: THROUGH TEXAS TO NATCHITOCHES ON THE RED RIVER OF LOUISIANA, JUNE 1ST-JULY 1ST, 1807.

The full style of this river was el Rio de los Brazos de Dios, River of the Arms of God, which seemed neither blasphemous nor sacrilegious to the admirable fanatics who so solemnly theographized geography in their excursions for the salvation of souls, ad majorem Dei gloriam. It is difficult for us to realize what a queer lot they were, with their "Monastery Road" to the "Opening of the Virgin," their Corpus Christi in one place and Sangre de Cristo elsewhere, Holy Ghost bay, Todos Santos collectively when they ran out of individual saints, and Rio Trinidad for the whole Trinity after the members of the divine family had been separately complimented. It is fortunate that we cannot commit the intellectual anachronism of putting ourselves in the place of these very sincere servants of a very moderate polytheism, though the result be that the Brazos is also called Brasses and Braces r., bringing up a ludicrous association of ideas with the buttons and suspenders which uphold our trousers, ad majorem pudorem virorum. Other names of this stream are Rivière Ste. Thérèse (or Rio Santa Teresa), and R. Maligne; thus the phrase "St. Théreseor or Maline R." appears on the map in Winterbotham's History, 1795. The river is the largest one of the series Pike is crossing; it drains a great area in Texas from the Llanos Estacados or Staked Plains to the Gulf, which it reaches between Galveston and Matagorda. The point at which the old Spanish trail struck it is indicated by Pike's mention of the Little Brazos, a sort of bayou or side-sluice which runs close to the E. side of the main stream for a great distance. The crossing was near the mouth of this bayou.